Comparing Christmases

What is Christmas?

Is it a time for family? A time for relaxing? A time for thanking? A time for remembering? Is it just a religious holiday? Or has it become a commercialised holiday? Is it even a holiday? Or has it become just another series of stress-inducing days and social constructions that no one really likes but will still follow anyway?

For every Christmas of my full but meagre couple decades alive, I have spent it at home with my immediate family.

A view from the windows of home.

Here's what it looks like: 

As the morning light streaks through the windows, a gaggle of voices can be heard, excitedly whispering or groaning "go back to sleep. It's not time yet."

Then, some minutes later, the call is given. It is time to come upstairs. But first, a staircase photoshoot of all the siblings in their fresh pyjamas from Christmas Eve. 

The rush into the room is accompanied by excited shouts, hands grabbing at presents and reminders of "not yet!" and "stockings first!" The rest follow at a more sedate pace, used to the ritual and settle into corner chairs near the quickly roaring gas fireplace.

Soon the stocking circle begins, in which each individual pulls one or two items from the red velvety depths, to show off to the rest of the family.

Once concluded it is time for breakfast. This usually consists of a mandarin orange and a cinnamon bun (whether they are homemade or storebought, changes from year to year) and the accompanying drinks are anything from the usual orange juices, milk, hot chocolate or a recent new favourite of eggnog lattes (now that a large portion of the family is older).

Breakfast is concluded and followed by the morning round of present unwrapping which is done in a similar manner to the stockings. Each individual is passed a gift and then, generally in age order, gifts are unwrapped and shown to all.

Sometime in between, the turkey is dropped in the oven and by 11am most of the morning festivities are over. The family trails off to get dressed and burrow into the newest favourite thing for that day, whether it is a book, a game a puzzle, a noisy, light-up toy or something else entirely.

A haze of wintery sun, snow and turkey waft through sparkling dust clouds which alight on dark wood floors between loose tinsel, bits of pine and a ribbon or two.

Evening comes with some help in the kitchen to get the Christmas meal rolling and often there is a Christmas show or movie playing in the background.

The dishes set out, circle what is often a 12-15 pound bird with stuffing and cranberry sauce to accompany. There are brussel's sprouts, mashed carrots and turnip, mashed potatoes, peas and carrots, traditional and cranberry ambrosia's, warm oven buns and sweet potatoes soaked in butter, brown sugar and cinnamon.

This gets devoured via seconds and thirds of things, though there is always the best bit, leftovers for dinners and lunches.

Following the stuffing of bellies to the degree we probably resemble turkey's ourselves, there is dessert. Pumpkin pie, sometimes apple pie, piles of sugar cookies, fudge, chocolate cookies, gingerbread, shortbread, sometimes mincemeat pies and thick slices of fruit cake.

The consumption of sweets occurs around the musical celebration in which the siblings play a few Christmas tunes (after a lot of cajooling) and the secret santa gift giving between family members which reveals the magnitude of individual creativity as the gifts, especially in recent years, are all homemade. Storybooks, films, cds of music, favourite sweets, musical concerts and who knows what will be created next.

And that, my friends, is Christmas day. Filtered in and out by days of skiing, skating, tobogganing, cookie baking, Christmas movie watching and general relaxing.

The wacky wonder of catching the London Eye at Christmas with bright filters for night photos.

This is how it was done with my extended family in England: 

It begins sleepily. See, there was a late midnight Christmas service at the twenty-person village church. Waking to sun streaming through white curtains. Tea is made, along with salmon and cream cheese sandwiches. This is piled up on a tray and set in the living room. Presents are distributed from under the tree. This is a quiet Christmas. No one is under twenty in these parts. That's sleepy Yorkshire villages for you. Though in recent years there has apparently been much less, to no snow which to me, feels less sleepy in the crisp green and gold of the morning than anything. After presents, it's time for the merry gentlemen to get dressed.

This is followed by a singularly sleepy day, augmented only by a little walk out in which holly and ivy sprigs are gathered to finish off the final decorations. Then it is time to head to this year's family host of the Christmas dinner, set for 4pm.

Here we are offered drinks (wine being the main option) and we settle for a bit of chat before all the dishes are set out on a warmer table. The table is set like so:

Each place has a Christmas cracker, a large red plate set underneath a main white porcelin dinner plate and a smaller dessert bowl on top, with a glass topped with shrimp, lettuce and a seafood sauce. The cutlery set around the plate consists of a main fork, a dessert fork, a main knife and dessert knife and the same for spoons at the top of the plates. On the left side of each dish sits a wine glass and on the right sits a water glass.

Dinner is called. People are settled and Christmas crackers are pulled between each pair. The paper crowns are worn, the jokes are laughed at and little gifts are giggled over. Tiny purses, finger puppets, wooden or ring puzzles.

Then it is time to gather up the main dinner course and soon all those bits of cutlery and plates are used. For example, unlike back home where a knife is picked up where necessary, it is essentially seen as an extention of your arm in England; you always use a knife. Turkey, ham, roast potatoes and parsnips, along with stuffing. Brussel's sprouts, steamed carrots, califlower, broccoli and Yorkshire pudding with gravy and warm oven buns with lots of butter.

Dessert follows right after and is either a trifle; spongey, creamy and drenched in sherry, or it is a heavy, divinely sweet and warm Christmas pudding.

Like back home, everyone retires into the sitting room feeling as stuffed as turkeys to pass around Christmas gifts while idly snacking on crisps, nuts, chocolate coins and there is a cheese tray, though most aren't cracking into it.

The evening is settling in around the telly for one of the Christmas specials and a Christmas film or two. For me that was Downton Abbey and Arthur Christmas. They do love their telly in England; after which bed is sought, at a late hour, after a bit of tea.

And that, my friends, is a Christmas dinner in England. Not much different and plenty much similar. Just so.

So what is Christmas?

Christmas is a time to spend with family. It is a time for lazy reflection. Looking back on where you have been, looking at where you are and looking at where you might be in the coming new year.

Christmas doesn't need the trappings of gifts. It just needs the reminder that people are thinking of you and you are thinking of them. It doesn't even need the elaborate dinners, desserts and nibbles. It just needs good company. Again. Nor does it need Christmas concerts, favourite movies and shows or a particular order and ritual to every act.

Christmas is not a time for giving or getting. It is simply a time being. Being with people you feel some connection to.

Maybe it means you don't have the million dollar Christmas skydiving in Dubai or the thousand pound weekend in a 14th century tower on the banks of the Ouse river in York. Maybe it means you don't celebrate Christmas at all and you just sleep in with your significant other, go for a walk and alternate your lazy day between games of Scrabble, a puzzle, some films and computer games.

It's just another year, another day, more life and living. It is what you make of it. Not what society does.

Christmas Fayre time.

How did you spend your Christmas?


Moony.

Inside the Library: Improving Your Writing

On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me...

some timely inspiration.

Add caption

Thanks be to John Finnemore (and my chance persual of his blog) for this fantastic advent calendar idea. I was just doodling on over to see any news about the upcoming final episode of the great Cabin Pressure series (which is due to air on December 23rd and 24th on Radio 4) and what do you know, he's dolling out facts and behind-the-scenes bits for each and every one of his episodes which number 26 total, well, once Zurich airs, there will be.

Anyway, I have also been at a bit of an inspiration hitch thanks to my daytime job but now, what shall follow for the twelve days before Christmas (so half an advent calendar), I will be detailing random tips, facts and fancies about everything from writing, to photography, general creativity, travel, music and fandom.

Today I would like to spotlight how I have gotten to where I have got, in terms of my writing ability. Some people say it is full of rich detail and lyricism. Others say it is tripe, typical and rather purple in its prose. Most say it rambles and I have never had anyone say it is hideous. I have been told it reads like a teenager's copy of Tolkien or my character's live like cardboard cutouts. But that's about it. So far.

Anyway, reviews and opinions on my style aside, how do you improve your writing? 

1. Read. Read. Read. Yes, that annoying English teacher you had in school is utterly correct. The best way to improve your writing is to read what other people wrote. Mind you, make sure it is a wide variety, otherwise you will end up writing like the angst-filled teens who write Mary-Sue fanfics instead of a mix between Margaret Atwood and Ed Greenwood. No, you do not have to read things labelled "classics" or "literary" only. No you do not have to give up your Forgotten Realms sagas, your Spice and Wolf light novels, your Kuroshitsuji (Black Butler) manga or your New Avengers comics.

Read a variety and then, read all the novels you can get your hands on which your target audience is reading now. That way you can develop an understanding of the tropes and tricks of the trade, as well as what your audience both expects, wants from their authors and what you could maybe push, just so you stand out that little bit.

2. Write every day. Like reading, this does not mean you have to be writing a chapter for your novel, your script, your epic poem or whatever it is you are developing, every. Single. Day. Nope. Don't dare. What you should do however is write something. It might just be an email, or a few scribbles that are pulled from the blood dripping off your forehead because that body part met a swinging while you tumbled out your house, late for work, in the morning.

Or, if you fancy a challenge, make a series of prompts for yourself to follow for two weeks straight. Find a site which has a collection of writing prompts, or a writing board, or a writer who will drop them in your inbox on a regular basis. These often only require you to write for 10 or 15 minutes straight on whatever prompt it might be. Sometimes they challenge you with a particular word count, but generally they go a little like this:

Write a scene that involves a Post-it note.

Write for at least 10 minutes. Write by hand, in your notebook.

This came from an author by the same of Sarah Selecky who is a brilliant Canadian writer and creativity inspirer. You can learn more about her here, get writing advice and sign up for her regular writing prompt emails as well at: 

http://www.sarahselecky.com/

3. Observe. The best way to get fodder to write about. The best way to get inspiration. The best way to learn how humans react, interact and fail to act, is to observe. At all times you must have a notebook with you. One, because writing by hand always forces more spontaneous creativity and pure, unedited thought than any technology (especially if you write in pen) and two, more often than not, right when you need that phone or tablet to copy down an observation, it runs out of battery power, takes long to start up, or is a hassle to drag out. Find yourself a notebook which can fit in your jacket pocket, along with a small pen and you are gold. 

Well, mostly. For some this is an easy task because you enjoy going on walks, sitting in cafes or doing solitary things which allow you the space and time to take in your surrounding human beings. Otherwise, set aside time every few days to consciously observe. Travel is especially valuable for this. That morning commute? Observe the passengers in the public transport of your choice. Using a car? Observe the people you are trapped in traffic with (and for those occasions have a voice recorder handy). 

4. Never Edit until the Work is Complete. This one isn't quite as crucial as the top three, but is no less important. It is what often keeps many from completing their work. It is the reason National Novel Writing Month and its various spin-offs have been created. The hardest thing for a writer to do is to get that alphabet soup in the brain, in order, in sense, in brilliance, out on paper. Get it down first. Then go back and you can make it pretty. Otherwise you'll catch yourself spending days, months, even years on that first chapter, that single page, or even that single line. 

5.  Have fun. Writing is meant to be fun. It is creativity. It is unadultered playtime for all ages, any year, any place, any time. When you loose your creative drive. When you struggle to reach a word count goal. When you fail at doing a writing prompt every day, for a year; even though that was your one resolution at New Years. You must always have fun. 

If you are going to have any resolutions in this upcoming year, have fun with your writing. Write something entirely new and different, off the cuff, silly or serious. Murder someone. Marry someone. Write that childish adventure fanfic you always wanted to do with your favourite Middle Earth elves. 

In the spirit of Dory, from Finding Nemo, who says "just keep swimming." 

I say, "just keep writing. Just keep writing. Writing. Writing. Writing." 

That's all. It's that simple. Now, excuse me while I go do some of my own. (Unrelated to this blog).
Moony. 
 

The Frabjous Days of Fandom

What is fandom?

One of the rare shots possible in such crowded, happy quarters.

To the people you bump into on the streets while you duck and dive during December's pre-Christmas consumerist chaos, they would say fans are insane, generally female and usually teenagers or the adults who still live in their parents' basements.

In short, they reel off a load of stereotypes.

Today I'd like to give you a general view of fans, from the belly of the beast itself...

The London Premiere of The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies. (With a precursor the night before at a pub).


The evening before the premiere, theonering.net, the leading force behind Middle Earth gatherings, news and fandom (apart from the more exclusive Tolkien Society), held a pub moot at a place just off the film centre of Leicester Square, called Waxy O'Connors. This pub looked and felt like it had dropped out of a black hole from the medieval period. It's all wood, celtic carvings and goblet. There were tin and iron basins in the toilets, wood carved into tree branches and bits of holly and ivy sprigged about. Also, grand fireplaces with deep pits, low benches, round tables, teetering stools and so many overhangs, balconies and twisty corridors, it never seemed to quite end.

The event took place in one of the upper floor rooms called the Cottage Room and also had a background of Howard Shore's epic scores. Well, at least until there were too many of us of present for there to be much point trying to have a background of "Concerning Hobbits" or "The Ring Goes South" being two of my favourite tracks which were played.

I arrived apprehensive. It's a social gathering. I am going alone. I am an introvert. It's par for the course then that I found myself a corner between a high backed chair and a wooden pillar near the bar. I leaned there and observed for an untangible amount of time. Appreciating the music, the warm atmosphere and the gorgeous costumes some people showed up in. Being that I had to pack as frugually as possible that meant no costumery, whether Middle Earth or otherwise, could find a home in my suitcase. So I made due by letting the Evenstar glint off the flickering fire place and maybe, possibly, my freshy done hair. (Which did in fact turn out rather lovely, despite all my worries. I am just flat thankful it didn't cost my head in pounds or sanity).

I bounced a few words with a girl who was shocked how busy it was and left right after as she couldn't stand the crowds and attempted to ooze my way into a coversation between four rather handsome Scots who were dressed as hobbits, complete with bare feet (they pulled their shoes off when they came in). They were more interested in getting drunk...

All the costumed people were gathered for a photo and prizes, one of the websites moderators did a quick speech of thanks and the chairman of the Tolkien Society, a thirty year old who has a hobbit complexion but an elf's height talked for a bit. Then, among the regular chatter a guy grabbed the mic and freaked everyone into thinking Andy Serkis was in the room, his Gollum impression was so spot-on. The cast and crew of the film did have this particular event on their iternary for the evening but they were free to chose what to do and what not to do, particularly in the case of a fan-run event like this. And so no more people left due to the crowded rooms. 
After all, a filmic hero could appear at a later hour. It was around this time that I heard the jarring drawl of an American accent. Around the other end of my corner a guy was expostulating his love of collecting Tolkien's works with the Tolkien Society chairman and somehow, I found myself leaking into the conversation. Probably because they started discussing the possibilities of the Silmarillion, if told in alternative mediums. I leaked into the conversation for a bit, rather aware that the guy was American and if I am going to meet any guy I would prefer to him to not be of the New World variety because hey, I am here, not there.

The pub moot was, as I predicted, a highlight. Meeting like-minded individuals always is. It means you get an evening full of people singing Tolkien songs, songs from the films and when, they get just drunk enough, they start dancing up on tables and re-enacting the pub and party scenes generally influenced by hobbits in the movies. Amusingly, this was largely directed by the Scottish hobbits. Unfortunately they eventually got so drunk by near midnight that their renditions of The Green Dragon, I See Fire, The Misty Mountains, the Cat and the Fiddle and The Road Goes Ever On, to name off a few, had devolved into what is apparently the bane of pub singing...Bohemian Rhapsody. I can agree now. The phrase "sounds like a dying cat" has never been more true.

My new acquaintances, the youtubers, a couple of Danish girls and an older couple from Cheshire who had been buying the group of us drinks periodically throughout the night, said a "hope to see you tomorrow" and there we parted.


Luke Evans, the fabulous individual who plays Bard in the films showed up. Well, there was more action to it than that. See, he started coming up the stairs of the pub to where most of us were situated. We were all alerted to the arrival of said celebrity by a roaring wave of cheer and then crash! The crowd bore down and the poor guy basically had to zip through with waves, smiles and stopping for a few requests of selfies with fans before leaving out the back end again. Yeah, that's fans for you when the shining quarry of various idols are spotted. Especially when the quarters in which said interaction is taking place happens to have a low medieval ceilings with a lot of pillars and tables and therefore precludes little manouvering room to begin with.

In reality it would have been better if it had been organised for said famous individuals to set up behind the bar along with the mic to allow a better interaction that wasn't so mobbish that the pub manager then blocked any other celebrities from entering in the name of health and safety. And so, Billy Boyd, who played Pippin in The Lord of the Rings and Ian McKellen, being Gandalf, dallied outside the back doors of the pub for a bit, interacting with the lucky few who spotted them, but my group and most others missed that secretive stop of theirs.

And that was that. I walked back to the hostel, skipping. People avoid eye contact here when you do something odd. Which is nice. No staring.

What follows is the actual Premiere:

8 hours wait. I arrived on needles and quite hot (because I speed-walked more than usual). The square crawled with workers in bright vests, piles of gates, metal supports, cranes and set-pieces in the form of trees, a dwarf statue and parts of a hobbit hole. In the Burger King at the corner I spied fans, standing out in their elvish crowns, long skirts, and armoured coats.

Milling about the square the fans continued but there was no direct organisation of lines as of yet. Perhaps I was too early? Shocking.

Turns out I was on time for a fan-organised line though eventually one of the workers came over and kicked us out of the square with a rather rude "if you lot aren't gone in 5, you'll be getting your wristbands cut."

And so we skedaddled. I had got myself chatting with a group of three friends who attend Kings College London and we hid in the Costas just below the main Odeon cinema so we could still see what was happening in the square, without actually being out in it and therefore encuring the further fury of the workers. We wondered how they could actually have the place set up and ready in time 11am when they said they would start organising us to line up in the pens.

And so followed an hour in which I wished I could be back in university. Between the three there was a breadth of knowledge (mostly of humanities and arts). Acting, animation, make-up design, English and linguistics. In short, I happily fit in while the one guy, who had just pulled a night shift at Sainsbury's (a grocery store), gulped back the largest possible hot chocolate you can get at Costas while entertaining us other three with his reading of Richard III and a monologue he was meant to memorise.

Eventually it was near 11am and finally, the lines were allowed to form, in the order of our numbered wristbands though, so I said farewell to my temporary friends and found myself in the middle of the line (being number 871 of 2000). I then accquainted myself with two old friends who hadn't seen eachother in three years and grew up in York.

And so the hours trekked on. Despite the official notice that we would be organised into the pens by 11, those weren't up and ready until nearly 3 and not until 4 were we finally ushered into the areas behind the red (or in the case of The Hobbit), the green, carpet. What ensued was a lot of nervous bathroom trips, snack trip, sitting on the ground under a thermal blanket and oodles of time-passing games.

Then came the premiere. It began in a trickle of security guards being flirted at by the three ridiculous girls next to me (who were seasoned premiere goers and stupidly rich with their 1600 pound/month flats in Chelsea, paid for by parents and their L'Oreal long hair which kept getting brushed and flipped in my face...). It began with the stalking of preeming press ladies in high heels and stylish dresses and then the camera people lugging gear and setting up directly across from my location. It flashed to a booming start with the mc kicking off with Ed Sheeran singing the closing song for the Desolation of Smaug credits.

The main press lady who did all the interviewing opened with a speech on the carpet in front of my spot and the press of the fans around me got tighter. A black car approached.

I was rather well situated I should mention, just in the second row of people and in the end where everyone is dropped off in the cars, has to stop for on-carpet interviews, then stops to get blinded by thirty cameras flashing, before continuing on until they reach the stage at the centre of the square.

Out of the car stepped. Duh. Duh. Duh. According to the mc, Andy Serkis. Cue the crowds screaming. And that, in a nutshell, is what occured for the next couple hours. Though you could, being semi-seasoned with comic conventions as I am, tell the star-level of a particular individual based on the sound level of screaming cheers. It was a tight tie between most, whether it was Peter Jackson himself, the shallowly popular Orlando Bloom or the intellectually popular Benedict Cumberbatch.

Having not thought much about bringing things to be signed or even of how difficult it is to photograph things when you have a row of pushy rich girls in front of you or you feel bad for the people at the back and so you pass up their copies of The Hobbit to be signed or whatnot, you mostly try to not go into shock. 

This entails taking deep breaths in order to get through the sensory overload and as well as trying to stamp the moment in your mind. The moment in which you actually, literally, come 20 centimeters away from people you have only ever seen on screens and have only imagined conversations with. Of course, no conversation is particularly possible in this setting. Those are best left for conventions, but, just being able to realise, these people are actually, physically real is rather mind-blowing. Curly hair and height is particularly more evident in real life than on screen.

A random highlight, I will say, is meeting the illustrious Roger Allam who I first ran across through the hilarious little radio drama that Grace and I listen to (Cabin Pressure). You know the thing I talk about too much? He and his adorable little son got invited by a friend who's on the cast list and he found it sweet how there could be someone who could be equally passionate about a radio show as she could be about The Hobbit. I did get his signature and a well-wish for a brilliant Christmas.

Mostly this was in part due to the fact everyone there was more focused on the big names, if they even knew their names at all. Again, those rich girls who always go to premieres couldn't even remember who people like Phillippa Boyens was and frankly, you are no fan if you cannot remember one of the flipping screenwriters, especially a female one! What I would do to sit down and have a conversation with her one day!

But that's humanity for you. Sheep who do things just to be "in." Well I'm going to "hipster" the "hipsters" and say I was a Lord of the Rings fan long before they got passed the Goosebumps, Roald Dahl and Judy Blume that classmates read while I stuck my nose into the adult fantasy section.

Aside from the chairman of the Tolkien Society and the girl from Toronto who is the enclyclopaedia half of the youtube Lord of the Rings videos, there was next to no one who I ran across who had such a ridiculous knowledge of Middle Earth details as I did. I really do need to just get into academia one day perhaps...

Anyway, on the whole it was a glorious evening. Both extremely sad and extremely exciting. It's both an ending and a new beginning. Now there can be a full 6 film marathon. A bit like the modern version of Anglo-Saxon oral storytelling in which the storytellers would gather the villagers into the mead hall and each night another section of the adventures of Scyld Scefing, the Valkyrie princess Brynhildr or the duel between the dragon Fafnir and the hero Sigurd would be reveals and reveled. 

And that is that.

Take what you will on that night observations of fans. 

And now go forth. Adventure is at hand, my good folks. Oh, and go see The Battle of Five Armies. It is glorious. And I am not just saying that as a Tolkien geek and nerd.

Moony.

Death in a Teacup: An Epic Road Trip to the End of the World

What follows is something I am challenging myself with in the face of lately finding it hard to pull the blood from my forehead and turn it into something more tangible. Namely, I fully intended to do National Novel Writing Month this year and it rather failed, fantastically, in the face of a lot of work and London trips getting in the way. Experience you see. It's why this blog has dropped off a bit and I am only just getting through revising my Scotland notes from a month ago. 

That all said, I apologise is this isn't your cup of tea (and yes that was a horribly intended pun). Hence why I am tagging this post and all those which will follow so that you might skip this if you would prefer. I will also endeavour to make these come in tandem with my more usual life and travel musings. Note however, the key word is, endeavour. 

What I am sharing with you all is a challenge I have been wanting to do for years, the challenge of writing an epic poem. Eventually I hope to have these recorded and dropped into youtube as well, but for now I would like to share them in the raw format of words and the picture quotes which were the original inspirations for many of the segments of this tale (among other things). 

Come now, listen, to the prologue in a grand tale of a girl who gets tangled with tricksters and tricksters who get tangled with technology. The old and new world clash in a race to find the Truth of the Universe. Who will live? Who will die? 

It is as inconsequential, as incongruous, as inconspicuous and as irreverently ridiculous as death via teacup. 

Join Stormy Kettle, a girl from the village of Luffy and seven oldball and ancient tricksters in a race organised by Time and Death themselves. 

(Possibly just out of boredom. But then again, if you were Time, or Death, wouldn't you do so too? It might keep the children's squabbles down a few decibels. At least for a couple decades).

 

Thanatos the Muse

Under crackle-paint walls.

Death sits on a lawn chair,

sipping tea.

Grass patches freckle the ground

Like the head of a balding man.

Behind the walls a guitar screams.

It scratches the sky with wounds. So

Death paints a window. Blue blanket

And bunny cloud vista.

Better to augment the red. Drip.

A bird twiddles. Casting vocal lines

To orchestrate an operatic overture

In purple.

The shade of rotted violets.

Forgotten under fantasies

Of white fences and picnic baskets.

Where reality makes faeries of us all.

Death stands at the window now.

Gazes through paint to a world

Overweight with want. 

Wondering thoughts over

How bellybutton lint, holds up

To batteries. Going, going

Bright till gone. Just desire.

Death minds the breeze slipping

In a ninety degree corner.

The wind complains at the volume

Of triplet two year olds in time out.

Death has many names. Killer, collector.

He would rather collect children less.

Do remember that.

A chipmunk scampers. Run, little

rodent. Faster than a hamster on the circle

Of life. Who has lived

through grocery store

check-out lines. Produce

and dairy product colours.

Where, live the faeries now?

Just remember, even if you.

Go hide under hill.

Death will still come, fortune

Disregarded.

Death spends life on a lawn chair

sipping tea under walls

of cracked paint.

The ground, a patchwork, bald-head

Grassland. Lacks the verge

Or a saw-edged knife, fresh off the wrist.

Some might call this home.

Death calls it Earth. 

Stay tuned for Part 1, Morpheus, the god of Dreams is rather malcontent.